Currently, only on macOS, I’m afraid…
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Hi everyone, I’m Vincent and I’m new to Scrivener. I’ve been working in word so I’m suffering the standard learning curve but still enjoying the software.
My question is in regards to Scrivenering and Compiling. I’ve loaded my manuscript to scrivener and I’m trying to prepare it for Beta distribution. I want to compile the document the same way you would read a book, with chapter starts on the right and blank end of chapter pages on the left. I’m also wanting to create and insert a lined two page document at the end of each chapter for reader comments and reviews. But I can’t quite figure out how to do that yet.
Any advise or reference direction would be really helpful.
Thanks in advance,
Vince
You could make a chapter template with questions for beta readers and spaces for them to type answers or a table template with questions and block table. I think the list of questions with space between would be easier and on whatever software they open it on (word, libre office, google docs the space would expand as the answer increases and one page of questions per chapter is probably all you need for beta readers. You could add template as a page at end of every chapter by right clicking on last scene in the chapter and click add- when do this see text, folder , and list of project templates.
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Recto/verso capability was never implemented on the Windows version of Scrivener.
Create a 2-page document template with ruled lines. Yes, a table as suggested—a single cell per line, with the left and right borders set to 0 (whoops, I see Scrivener can’t do this. So create the table doc in Word. Scrivener has no problem with Word tables, it honours the code.) — should give the desired effect. Perhaps double up on the line spacing for the table cells.
Allocate this document, which you’ll repeat, to a specific Section Type, e.g. Lined Pages.
If your workflow is Chapter, Scene, drop the template in after the final scene of each Chapter.
In Compile Format Designer, create a Lined Section Layout and have it render As Is. Remember to set a Section Break (Page Break) in Separators before and after this document to get a clean two-page document where needed.
Assign the Lined Pages Section Type to the Lined Section Layout, and all should be good.
I’ve merged your query with an existing discussion on the same thing. Here is the approach that I would use, which is compatible with most DTPs, and even LibreOffice (which has a very DTP approach to design, unlike Word).
In short, if you’re down to the point of thinking about things to this level of detail, then you’re on the very end of what Scrivener does anyway and are ready to migrate on to other tools. Whether you depart the project over this or a thousand and one other design things Scrivener cannot do, is perhaps inconsequential.
The main goal is make things as easy as one can on themselves during that migration, which is how I would characterise most of Scrivener’s compile features. My approach, described above elsewhere, of banking heavily upon styles to do the heavy lifting rather than manual formatting, is most often the easiest way to do things. The Word approach, of brute forcing empty pages into spots where the chapter break is on the wrong side, or whatever, is extremely inefficient and fragile, as edits that significantly change the length will mean having to do all of that all over again.
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